Romans 6

Paul has just argued that where sin increased, grace increased more. And he anticipates the obvious question: so should we sin more so grace can increase more? His answer is essentially: are you serious? You died. How do you go on living in the thing you died to?

The logic of baptism runs through Romans 6. Buried with Christ. Raised with Christ. The old self was crucified. The body of sin done away with. So act like it.

That word count is interesting. Count yourselves dead to sin. It’s not describing a feeling. It’s describing a decision. You don’t always feel dead to sin. You often feel very much alive to it. But the instruction is to count it, reckon it, treat it as true, because it is true whether it feels like it or not.

I’ve had to learn that obedience sometimes precedes feeling. That acting from what I know is true, before I feel it to be true, is not hypocrisy. It’s faith operating in the gap between reality and experience. The reality is the death and resurrection. The experience catches up later.

Don’t offer the parts of yourself to sin. Offer them to God. That’s the practical instruction. Which means every day has small decisions about what gets offered to what.